Smoke from 2012 wildfires in Washington state a factor for wine quality?

This is interesting: Wildfires in eastern Washington last summer (2012) put a smoke haze over parts of the state for days. Smoke particles can come to rest on grape skins, and thus end up in the finished wine (I suppose the smoke could be rinsed off, but that is not practicable in the case of many tons of grapes and it could dilute the wine flavors, and if the smoke somehow binds to the grape then you have an unremovable flaw.

However, the Walla Walla wineries don't think they were impacted by this; I'm not sure where the smoke clouds were located.

Apparently the effects of smoke on wine will increase with the wine's age, so any damage won't be known right away. The damage would be worse with red grapes, where the smoke flavor could obscure the fruit flavors. However, since some white winegrapes are aged in burnt barrels (that's behind the name "Fume Blanc," for example), smokiness in a white wine can be a plus. And in a small amount it's just another beneficial flavor in a red wine.

We should know, over the next few years, whether and to what extent any WA wineries were impacted. Meanwhile, funding for remote firefighting is dropping, and the number of fires is increasing . . .

Read the article here.

[photo credit: Al Feldstein. Amazing artworks of his can be seen here.

Pesticides in Wines; this is another reason why we should move to hybrids!

(Source: The first part of this post is lifted verbatim from portlandfoodanddrink, which can and should be found here)

We’re all gonna die! Nine out of ten French wines contain pesticides. According to a study in the wine trade journal Decanter, pesticide residues were found in the vast majority of 300 French Wines. 90 percent of samples contained traces of at least one of the chemicals.

Some wines contained up to nine separate molecules, with ‘anti-rot’ fungicides the most commonly found. These are often applied late in the growing season.

…Since 2008, France’s Ecophyto national plan (involving the study of the ways in which organisms are adapted to their environment) has sought to cut pesticide use by 50% by 2018.

From Mother Jones -

Encouragingly, all of the individual pesticide residues appeared at levels below limits set by the French environmental agency. But some samples turned up with as many as nine separate pesticides. And as I’ve written before, groups of pesticides may have so-called “cocktail” or “synergistic” effects—that is, a pesticide mix may be more toxic than the sum of its parts. As Pascal Chatonnet, head of the research firm that conducted the test of French wines, told Decanter, “There is a worrying lack of research into the accumulation effect, and how the [pesticide] molecules interact with each other.”

Plus, as Chatonnet pointed out to Decanter, “we should not forget that it is not the consumers who are most impacted by this, it is the vineyard workers who are applying the treatments.”

The class of pesticides that showed up most often were fungicides. According to Decanter, vineyards occupy just 3 percent of French farmland, but account for 20 percent of the nation’s overall pesticide use and 80 percent of its fungicide use.

A 2008 study found similar amounts in wines from Australia, South Africa and Chile. Interestingly, the author didn’t find any studies of the pesticide levels in American wines.

[Kenton writing:] The hybrid grapes (or "modern varieties") I'm working with don't need antifungal sprays in the PacNW. Thus, there is no chance of fungicide residue in the wines from such grapes. Yet another reason to switch from vinifera to hybrid winegrapes!

Botanical wine corks?

Nomacorc is developing a cork made from sugar and corn. No, really. At first it will be blended with their current oil-based plastic synthetic cork material, but the hope is that eventually the entire cork can be made from plant (vegetative) products. The material will be made in a variety of porosities, enabling different rates of oxygen intrusion, at the preference of the winemaker.

Awesome!

Read the article here.

I wrote this:

Wines, much like people, are continuing expressions of the climate in which they were raised.

[photo credit: 123RF ]

We're Number One!

The U.S., that is.

And I'm not talking about our public debt.

We're #1 in wine consumption. Other countries drink more wine per capita, but we drink the most by total volume consumed. Americans consumer 13% of global wine consumption now. Foreign wines make up 35% of all sales here.

Read the article here.

[photo credit: archive.citycaucus.com ]

Why are some winegrapes blue, yet the wines are purple or red?

I couldn't have answered this for you, but Mr. Alex Fullerton, a winemaker and friend, came to the rescue. I quote him:

Anthocyanins (the main pigment in red wine, red cabbage, blueberries, and many other things) are responsible for both the blue color in the grapes' skins and the purple color of the wine. Anthocyanins have a double bond that is formed at one of two different locations of the molecule depending on which location is more favorable, resulting in the molecule having two very different shapes it can take. In high pH it is more favorable for most of the molecules to twist one way resulting in blue hues, while in low pH it is more favorable for most of the molecules to twist the other way resulting in red/pink hues. The skins on the Monastrell grapes are very alkaline resulting in the blue color while the wine is more acidic (but not extremely acidic, maybe around pH 3.8) causing a purple color (roughly half of the pigment is blue and the other half is red, red + blue = purple). A very acidic Burgundy on the other hand with pH under 3.5 will appear very red.

And, from Wiki:

Anthocyanins (from the Greek words for "flower" and "blue") can appear red, purple, or blue, depending upon the pH. In flowers and fruits, anthocyanins make the color red, blue, or purple, in order to attract pollinating insects (in the case of flowers) or predators (in the case of fruits, which need predators to eat and then disperse the seeds in the fruit).


There is nothing cooler than science.

[Photo attribution: Shutterstock.com]

Washington wine vs California wine

Summarizing from a very interesting article:

California grows about TWENTY TIMES more tons of grapes than Washington. (And yet, WA is #2 behind CA! so no other state comes even as pathetically un-close as does WA to CA.) But Washington's harvested grape prices are more than California's. That is because CA makes so much cheap (jug) wine. When we compare just Napa or Sonoma to WA, it's very interesting:  The tonnage for all of WA is about the same as for either Napa or Sonoma. But the price per harvested ton in WA is only 28% (!) of the price in Napa! This is because of Napa's stratospheric land prices, and its premium prices for top brand names.

Given all the great scores for so many WA wines, you can see why I believe that WA is making great quality wines for the cost. For the most part, CA just can't compete on QPR (quality price ratio). Many of your wine dollars need to be going towards Washington wines!